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(AP Photo/AMC, Frank Ockenfels)

What’s the price of history? If the history is a spot on series finale of Breaking Bad the week after its first Emmy for Outstanding Drama, the answer is around $250,000 for 30 seconds.

That puts this very special episode of Breaking Bad at the very top of television’s scripted shows. Extrapolated to $4 million per half hour—how ad rates are compared across the board—this would put Breaking Bad substantially ahead of a normal episode of Modern Family, ABC’s Emmy-winning comedy which pulled in around $2.9 million per half hour in 2012, or NCIS, which averaged about $3 million. A top reality show like American Idol, which averaged $6.6 million per half hour in 2011, makes substantially more.

Of course, AMC isn’t actually getting that much money on this episode of Breaking Bad. The $250,000 number is network’s average asking price. And as in the world of used cars, asking prices and selling prices for television spots are often different, sometimes drastically. Asking prices for the Breaking Bad finale varied wildly with some sources reporting prices as high as $350,000 and others as low as $150,000.

Agencies with the clout that comes from doing a lot of business with the network, for example, can buy time for less and the negotiations start at a lower rate.

Note also that the $250,000 figure is for a single “scatter” spot in the finale episode. An advertiser approaching AMC late in the game for a single spot on this episode probably paid dearly. If any spots were available. As of midweek, AMC was sold out.

Most of the commercial time for the episode was purchased in advance as part of larger buys which included spots in the series’ final eight episodes. “We sold the lion’s share of inventory in the upfront,” AMC COO Ed Carroll said during the network’s second quarter earnings call. The asking price on a “regular season” Breaking Bad spot was around $75,000 this season, up from around $56,000 last year.

Whether by design, or serendipity, many of the spots come with a built-in Breaking Bad connection, from Cadillac’s ads featuring Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul, to a Taco Bell ad which opens with an appearance by the actor who played the owner of the junkyard where Jesse stored his RV in season two.

While Breaking Bad’s ratings have been climbing steadily, and are expected to reach a series-best viewership of 8 million, that’s only part of the story. What’s equally important to advertisers is who is watching. Breaking Bad is especially popular among young men who are notoriously hard to reach.

What's your take? Add your comments below about all things Breaking Bad and watch these pages all this week for a series of exclusive Working Bad interviews with key members of the Breaking Bad team.